Content Structure

The Arts learning area comprises five subjects: Dance, Drama,
Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts.

The Arts curriculum is written on the basis that all
students will study at least two Arts subjects from Pre-primary to the end of
Year 8. It is a requirement that students study a performance subject and a
visual subject.

In Years 9 and 10 the study of the Arts is optional.

In the Arts, it is desirable that schools provide students
with the opportunity to engage with all five Arts subjects across Pre-primary
to Year 10.

Each of the five Arts subject is organised into two
interrelated strands: Making and Responding.

Making

Making in each Arts subject engages students' cognition,
imagination, senses and emotions in conceptual and practical ways and involves
thinking kinaesthetically, critically and creatively. Students develop
knowledge and skills to plan, produce, present, design and perform in each arts
subject independently and collaboratively. Students work from an idea, an
intention, particular resources, an imaginative impulse, or an external
stimulus.

Part of making involves students considering their work in
the Arts from a range of points of view, including that of the audience.
Students reflect on the development and completion of making in the Arts.

Responding

Responding in each Arts subject involves students reflecting,
analysing, interpreting and evaluating in the Arts. Students learn to appreciate
and investigate the Arts through contextual study. Learning through making is
interrelated with, and dependent upon, responding. Students learn by reflecting
on their making and responding to the making of others. The points of view students
hold, shift according to different experiences in the Arts.

Students consider the Arts' relationships with audiences.
They reflect on their own experiences as audience members and begin to
understand how the Arts represent ideas through expression, symbolic communication
and cultural traditions and rituals. Students think about how audiences
receive, debate and interpret the meanings of the Arts.

Relationships
between the strands

Making and Responding are intrinsically connected. Together
they provide students with knowledge and skills as practitioners, performers
and audience members and develop students' skills in critical and creative
thinking. As students make in the Arts, they actively respond to their
developing work and the works of others; as students respond to the Arts, they
draw on the knowledge and skills acquired through their experiences to inform
their making.

Year level descriptions

Year level descriptions provide
an overview of the key concepts addressed, along with core content being
studied at that year level. They also emphasise the interrelated nature of the
two strands and the expectation that planning will involve integration of
content from across the strands.

For the five Arts subjects, the year level
description includes forms, genres, styles, contexts, materials, practices
and/or elements relevant to each Arts subject that informs approaches to
teaching and learning in the Arts.

Content description

Content descriptions set out the
knowledge, understanding and skills that teachers are expected to teach and
students are expected to learn. They do not prescribe approaches to teaching.
The core content has been written to ensure that learning is appropriately
ordered and that unnecessary repetition is avoided. However, a concept or skill
introduced at one year level may be revisited, strengthened and extended at
later year levels as needed.

Additional content descriptions
are available for teachers to incorporate in their teaching programs. Schools
will determine the inclusion of additional content, taking into account
learning area time allocation and school priorities.

The additional content will not
be reflected in the Achievement Standard.

Achievement standards

From Pre-primary to Year 10,
achievement standards indicate the quality of learning that students should
typically demonstrate by a particular point in their schooling. An achievement
standard describes the quality of learning (e.g. the depth of conceptual
understanding and the sophistication of skills) that would indicate the student
is well-placed to commence the learning required at the next level of
achievement.

Glossary

A glossary is
provided to support a common understanding of key terms and concepts included
in the core content.